Craig Stammen churned out eight strong innings to lead the Nats to victory.

Craig Stammen says his right arm has never felt this good. It certainly didn't feel this good last year when he tried to pitch with bone chips in his elbow that didn't allow him to throw a curveball without wincing pain.

But perhaps Stammen actually feels too good. Able to throw free and easy for the first time as a big leaguer, he's been tempted at times to try to cut loose and overpower opposing hitters.

Just one problem: Stammen is not a power pitcher. Never has been. Never will be. He actually loses effectiveness when trying to throw too hard, something he did five nights ago in Philadelphia during a wretched, 1 1/3-inning start against the Phillies.

So when he returned to the mound tonight against the Rockies, the 26-year-old made a conscious effort to ease off the gas pedal a bit. Don't try to throw 94 mph when 90 is good enough.

"When you're young, you learn real quick that 100 percent isn't always the best," he said. "I kind of got into a mode where my arm was feeling so good, I was letting 'er fly. And that felt good. But I wasn't getting any results."

Stammen got the results he and the Nationals wanted tonight. With eight superb innings of two-run ball, he rediscovered his top form and led Washington to a thoroughly satisfying 5-2 victory over Colorado.Read more »

Mark, any update on Wang, Detwiler and JZ? Damn, this team might actually be ok sooner than we thought. Get Dunn swinging the bat, and some sort of offense from RF (MENCH is so hot right now), and who knows, we might beat the Mets.

Loved the piece, thanks. You go, Livo, and nice work, Stammen!Thanks to meixler for the link to the New Yorker story. Congrats on the publicity, Mark. I would, however, opine to Mr. MrGrath that Mrs. Z. does a fine job with photos of game action. I believe that the lady has her head in the game, thank you very much.

Does anyone know what was going on in I think the end of the 4th or 5th inning when Pudge seemed to be pretending that the ball got by him? Then he just fired it to first. Was busy doing something at the time, had the TV on mute, and couldn't hear what the commentators were saying!

Oh, and my fave part of the New Yorker piece was probably JR's address to the media. :-)Janner33, I believe that Pudge didn't realize the ball was in his glove the whole time. Bob also referenced the time that Zimm lost the baseball in his jersey (which I'd been telling my husband about just moments before).

Well done, Mr. Zuckerman.(And a Memo to Other Writers Some of Whom May Now Be Working the Asia Desk for a Major Washington Newspaper: If you don't want your food-critic ambitions to be splashed across the pages of the New Yorker, keep them to yourself.)

Mark Zuckerman said…In the process, Stammen extended a trend that has come to define the 2010 Nationals. When their starting pitcher goes at least five innings, they're now 7-0. When the starter fails to go five, they're 0-6.________________________________Thanks for pointing stat out.I also like the points by Gus above. I just can't imagine what this offense can be when Adam Bomb gets going!

Gus said… Mark, any update on Wang, Detwiler and JZ?ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZYes, we certainly need an update on these 3. Where are they all at physically and geographically also. Thanks much!

OK, the much-anticipated injury updates…Wang has been throwing off a mound in Viera. Next step is throwing live BP. Then he'll go on a rehab assignment. Target date to return is early-to-mid-June.Detwiler is on a similar timeframe. His rehab assignment will come sometime in mid-to-late May.Zimmermann has a longer way to go, but that's been expected all along. The Nats are still targeting August-September for his return from Tommy John surgery.It should be pointed out once again that all three players (along with Jesus Flores) are on the 60-day DL. So they are ineligible to return before June 3. Not that it appears any of them will be ready prior to that.

I don't know that I'd be likely to wear one (I tend to stick with Nats wear for games). I'd be more likely to use a coffee mug or some such. But that would only advertise the site to my husband and house guests, I suppose. I do like the slogan contest idea. In other news, I found the Livo-Elvis scoop on Debbi Taylor's MASN blog (see below). I *thought* that might be the case. I love Livo, but he doesn't have the smallest head around. :-)"On Friday, Josh Willingham sported the silver Elvis hairdo, but on Sunday, Livan Hernandez had the wig hanging in his locker because he told me it didn't fit!"

Marketing staff?You mean Mrs. Z I presume.T-shirt with slogan?Not likely.Then again, over a 2 week period in 1978, there were about 100,000 "It ain't over till the fat lady sings" t-shirts sold.Ah, Les Boulez.Don't let me discourage you.Get a logo / slogan / whatever, log in to cafepress.com and you can set up you online shop with coffee mugs, boxer shorts, coozies, anything you want.

The slogan thing was done to death over at Nationals Journal back in the day (2007?), with some pretty hilarious slogans but no T-shirts.Yes, I'd buy a t-shirt if it was cool looking. Put the year on it and you can change the slogan every year.

Living in Idaho, I got to watch the Nationals on TV instead of the computer on the Rockies baseball network.They were surprised at how good Stammen pitched considering his ERA.I wasn't. I recall several stories over the winter that suggested that Stammen (even with his surgery)was highly thought of and several teams inquired about trading for him.It is still amazing that the Nationals selected Stammen and Lannan back-to-back in 2005 (I think it was the 11th and 12th rounds).J.D. Martin pitched very well in Syracuse last night too — I still think he deserves to be that rotation somewhere.

Both JD Martin and Luis Atilano have been pitching well in the rotation in Syracuse. The whole staff (to a much lesser extent Matt Chico at this point) in Harrisburg look like they are all ready to make the next move. Its not just Strasburg at this point.

I would absolutely buy a "Nats Insider" t-shirt. This is my "go to" site every day (I really should say many, many times a day but the boss could be reading ;)) Now I just have to figure out how to be able to post from my Blackberry 'cuz I use that at night for the in-game threads – anybody out there know?

I would love a Nats Insider T-shirt. Also, I love that article on NY'er. I was at that 2nd Strasburg start down in Viera also so I can relate to so many topics on that article. I love NY'er writing, especially baseball writing. Go Mark!! Go Nats!!